A Sabbath Day's Journey

By: Rev. Paul Landgraf

What is a Sabbath day's journey? First of all, it is a Jewish expression. We measure distances in meters or yards. The Jews had a certain distance that they could walk on Saturday before it would be considered work. So their synagogues that they went to on Saturday could not be very far away. The word appears only in Acts 1:12 and indicates a distance of about three-quarters of a mile.

With that in mind, I think it is important to remember the origins of Christianity. Just because we have an Old Testament, it does not mean that we call it the 'Outdated Testament'. Much of the Old Testament has a literary structure that we are not aware of because of our modern emphasis on chapter and verse divisions. Within many of these blogs, I try to get the reader to see a bigger picture, a larger perspective that often includes the Old Testament and the environment that was present when the New Testament was seeing the Light of the day.

Second, a Sabbath day's journey is intentionally short. These 'journeys' with a text, almost always one of the three readings for that Sunday, are deliberately brief discussions. This blog was never designed to be a comprehensive look at any text. Sometimes a specific word is studied in detail. But, as a whole, a blog entry, by itself, is meant to be quite brief.

Finally, since the term 'Sabbath day's journey' appears in Acts, it is meant to appeal to a wide variety of people. This blog is meant for those who cannot come on Sunday mornings. And it is also for those who do come on Sunday mornings but would also like a further study of the text. It is also for those who live somewhere else in the world (besides Drake and Freedom, Missouri, USA) and would simply like a further study of the text. It was meant to get these different groups of people to start thinking about the biblical texts. Part of the reason for this blog is that I am not able to have a bible class on Sunday mornings with either congregation, and so, to have a blog like this seemed like a good idea. I hope it is helpful for you, in whatever situation you may be.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. And thank you for taking the time to read this!

The first Sunday in Lent has a theme that is easy to remember. This is the Sunday where we look at the temptation of Jesus after his baptism. And with three gospel accounts that are quite similar to each other, it is easy to have enough material for the three-year series. And, although this year we are looking at the temptation of Jesus from the perspective of the Gospel according to Matthew [4:1-11], I would like to consider a temptation account within the Gospel according to John.

The following work really helped to get me started on this topic. If you would like to read about this in much more detail, I would highly recommend a chapter entitled, “Jesus the Baptist: The First Temptation of Christ.” It was written by Sean M. McDonough. And it appears in yet another book with a long title (although, surprisingly enough, not incredibly costly): In the Fullness of Time: Essays on Christology, Creation, and Eschatology in Honor of Richard Bauckham. It was published by Eerdmans in 2016.Jesus’ being tempted by the devil deserves a prominent place at the start of Jesus’ ministry. In the Gospel according to Matthew, within this text, there is large number of historical presents (where the writer could have chosen to write in the past tense, but he chooses to write in the present; instead of ‘the devil took Jesus into the holy city’, he writes ‘the devil takes Jesus into the holy city’; all translations are the author’s). In the Gospel according to Mark, the first historical present is within this short account of his temptation (Mark 1:12): ‘And immediately the Spirit throws him out into the desert.’ In the Gospel according to Luke, the devil does his three temptations—although they are in a different order—and then he leaves, but the text says that he went away from him ‘until the proper time (Luke 4:13b)’. The devil comes back near Jesus’ crucifixion, obviously at an important time for all involved—including us. The only time Satan is mentioned in the Gospel according to John is when he enters into Judas Iscariot, and he gets things ready for the betrayal.

Is it possible to have a temptation at the beginning of the Gospel according to John? If so, it would look significantly different in this account, as many things do. The perspective, other than being different, is one of an eagle—that is the living creature most often associated with this account. And the eagle usually flies high overhead and is usually not bothered by things that happen below.

I am proposing that Satan need not be mentioned for there to be a temptation. Although the devil is not mentioned, Jesus is certainly ‘troubled’ as he gets closer to the cross in this gospel account. Jesus says (12:27): ‘Now my soul has been troubled, and what may I say? Father, save me from this hour? But because of this I came to this hour. At John 13:21, the text says this: ‘Saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit and witnessed and said, “Amen, amen, I tell you that one of you will betray me.’

Things go quite well for Jesus at the beginning of this gospel account; there is no description of him being ‘troubled’. (The only thing ‘troubled’ near the beginning of the account is the water in John 5:7.) People are making great confessions about him. The closest thing to a temptation at the start of Jesus’ ministry may be at the start of John 4. There the text reads as follows (verses 1-5a):

When, therefore, the Lord knew that the Pharisees heard that Jesus was making more disciples and baptizing more than John (though Jesus himself did not baptize but his disciples), he left Judea and went away again into Galilee. And it was necessary for him to pass through Samaria. He comes, therefore, to a city of Samaria called Sychar….

The text continues with the story of the woman at the well (which will come up soon as a gospel text this year in Lent). So Jesus may have been tempted to popularity.

If so, there is another time that this happens, although not at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. When he feeds the five thousand, in the Gospel according to John, Jesus knows that they were about to seize him to make him king, he departs again, to a mountain this time (John 6:15).

What is interesting about these two texts (and, with the Gospel according to John, there is a LOT within the category of ‘interesting’) is that both of the texts call Jesus ‘Lord’, a title usually connected to him after his resurrection. (This is also somewhat prominent in the Gospel according to Luke). You can see this in the quotation above in 4:1, but the word also appears in 6:23. The first time it was connected to baptism, and the second time it is connected to giving out the bread, and the Lord is described as ‘having given thanks’, and this word, in the Greek, is a word that has, as its base, the word ‘Eucharist’. This word is an ancient term for the Lord’s Supper.​Jesus was tempted to become popular with baptizing, and Jesus was tempted to become popular with giving out his special bread. Pastors can become tempted as well. With Jesus having the title ‘Lord’, we are reminded as to who is in charge—and what has to happen first on his cross.

The last Sunday in the Epiphany season is traditionally Transfiguration Sunday, the Sunday with a big ‘manifestation’. Since this year we are looking at the Gospel according to Matthew (17:1-9), it would be nice to make a connection between this first gospel account and the first book of the Old Testament, the book with the big beginning, the book of Genesis.

Each gospel writer describes the face and clothes of Jesus on that special mountain in a special way, and in the Gospel according to Matthew, we have that description in a way that makes me think about the creation account. When the face of Jesus is compared to the sun and the clothes of Jesus are described as white as light (verse 2), and these two created items seem to be starting points within the creation account.

The creation happened in six days—and it is important to take that literally. And it seems to be broken into two sets of three days. For the first three days, God created the light, and then the waters, and then the land. These three things seem to set the stage for the next three days. For the next three days, God creates the sun, moon and stars on the first day, the birds and sea creatures on the second day, and all the land creatures on the last day. The two parts of both setting the stage and then filling it are helpful to see the importance of the salvation story that the book of Genesis begins to relate. This story is not about INFORMation; it is about SALVation.

Another way to look at the creation account is to see only ONE starting point, that of God speaking. God did not have to say any of those things for them to happen. There were basically no persons to hear him anyway. But he spoke everything into existence.Perhaps you knew that there were other creation accounts from other cultures and civilizations. They also have significant starting points, and you can tell a lot from the place in which they start.

There is quite an unusual, ancient ‘creation’ account with a particular Babylonian ‘theogony’. The starting points are two gods, a male and a female. And you can imagine that with such a starting point, there is a chance of things going wrong in some significant ways.

With this particular creation account, other things are, of course, eventually brought into existence. When male and female work together, there is a certain amount of power there. But with that power, there is a great potential to misuse that power. Within that account, there is a lot of talk about killing, and there is also a common refrain that speaks about sovereignty and lordship. So, it is interesting that there is one ‘quotation’, one use of words, within this Babylonian ‘creation’ account, where the earth, as a woman, turns her attention toward the god of wild animals, her son, and wants to have a serious relationship with him. And you thought that people did weird things only in recent times! (The Ancient Near East Supplement: Relating to the Old Testament, Princeton University Press, 1969, pages 81-82).

In such a different way, the true God of the universe speaks. There is a selfless, gentle, patient love, with which he says, ‘Let there be light.’

How long would he have to wait for his only Son to say the words, ‘I am the light of the world’? (John 8:12). It also took a while for Jesus to tell his disciples that THEY were ‘the light of the world (Matthew 5:14).’ Was he contradicting himself with this statement? Certainly not! At the end of his point, he says that your light should shine so that people may see their good works and give glory, not to themselves, and not to Jesus, but to YOUR Father in heaven.​The starting point of YOUR Father in heaven is certainly a significant one.

It recently ‘hit me’ that the sixth Sunday after the Epiphany is our last look at the Sermon on the Mount for a while [Matthew 5:21-37]. Countless sermons have been preached about this sermon, many books have been written about it, and there is still much more that could be said.

If you are interested in the connection between the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord’s Prayer—this is something I brought up last week—I was going to suggest looking at the very recent book by Charles Nathan Ridlehoover, The Lord’s Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel (T & T Clark, 2019). I also checked the price of it and would recommend you try to borrow it from a seminary library. And speaking of seminary libraries, if you are near Concordia Seminary in St. Louis (Missouri), or if you can get your hands on a copy of this, I would also suggest looking at the dissertation of David Elbert Fielding, The Lord’s Prayer: Its Interpretation and a Reassessment of an Eschatological Orientation, Favoring the Prayer’s Primary Application as Being for the Present Gospel Age (1995). But if you are not into books with long titles, you just might want to read the following few paragraphs. I will try to stay on a single point.

Both of the above books see the Lord’s Prayer as central to the Sermon on the Mount. The second book even goes so far as to say that the critical word ‘daily’ is the word in the exact center of the Lord’s Prayer. This is a very special type of bread for which we are asking. I have mentioned this point before, but not within the following context.I would encourage you to see the Sermon on the Mount as a mountain, with that middle word ‘daily’ as the top, the peak, the very important point (literally). And when God comes down to that mountain and he gives that very special word (the word which we are not sure of its meaning), everything changes because of who he is and what he has done.

I have mentioned before that the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer change significantly after the mention of that special word, ‘daily’. In the Lord’s Prayer, the Lord’s presence makes forgiveness possible, both among us and among others. He takes the initiative and leads us—but not into temptation. He also rescues us from the evil. His presence does some significant things!

In the Old Testament, the Lord started to do amazing things on that one particular mountain in all the world, Mount Sinai. Then his presence was connected to a moving tabernacle or tent. Then it was connected to the stationary temple in the all-important city on Mount Zion, the holy city of Jerusalem. Then it was connected to Jesus. And all those things happened in a place on the earth that was close to three different continents and, therefore, that special word was able to be passed on to many others in the world.

Jesus moved on one particular day to a particular mountain and gave this sermon. This next Sunday he is going to move to another mountain to be transfigured. And in a few more Sundays, we are going to see him move on to another mount, a smaller one; it was called ‘The Place of the Skull’. And, just so you do not miss him, he is in the middle, between two criminals, both of whom were rightly condemned to death.

Just so you do not miss the importance of all of that which has happened on this earth, I have decided to include a picture with this blog. In the gospel text for this Sunday, heaven is called the throne of God and the earth is called his footstool (Matthew 5:34-35).

We usually think of a footstool as just a fancy place for the feet of someone sitting down—in this case, the king. The picture below is not so cute. It was taken from a larger one where the pharaoh, Amenhotep the second (1445-1420 B.C.), is placing his feet upon some of his enemies. A footstool is a place where a very powerful person’s feet would go. In Joshua 10:24, Joshua has the captains of Israel place their feet upon the necks of their enemy’s kings.​We deserve to be the ones in this lowly position on earth. What a different picture we have in the Bible of our Lord and his love for this sinful world!

For the fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, we go back to where we were, two weeks ago, making our way through the beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew. For this Sunday, the gospel text is Matthew 5:13-20.

It is difficult to understand a sermon when you walk into the middle of it. But with this so-called ‘Sermon on the Mount’, the topic already seems to jump from one place to another. Is there an actual theme within the entirety of this sermon—other than the location from where it was given?

Jesus started the sermon with the beatitudes, and they may be seen to be from a position of authority. That is also mentioned as a response to the entire sermon (see 7:28-29). Jesus explains the groups of people who are blessed and in what way they will be blessed.

From the previous Sunday, we learned that, when given a list in this gospel account, the middle seems to be an important item (see 4:23-25). In this list of nine, total beatitudes (some count only eight because they do not want to include the one regarding persecution), the middle one changes the nature of the blessing.With the first four beatitudes, something is lacking in the group at the start. After those beatitudes, there is something in the group that Jesus identifies that does not show something lacking, but it shows something wonderful that they possess. And because of this characteristic, Jesus promises a blessing to that particular group that is still unexpectedly generous. In short, in whatever your situation, Jesus does something incredible.

Jesus makes his very first, very obvious self-reference in the Sermon on the Mount with this very last blessing (verse 11): ‘Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely ON MY ACCOUNT (emphasis added).’This self-reference is certainly not a positive one. Jesus could have described himself as the powerful one, even as the Son of God (see verse 9). He could have described some of the wonderful things that happen to others on account of him. But Jesus is going down a very different road.Speaking of roads, with this previous Sunday text, a middle item within this Sermon on the Mount may point to a possible theme for the entire sermon. It certainly could be an easy thing to pass over.

The first time Jesus spoke of God as Father, the people were probably in shock. That usually did not happen in the Old Testament. Jesus is starting them down a new road. Even more shocking is that almost all of these references in the Sermon on the Mount are to ‘your Father’. That is something they did not deserve—and here we may think of all the graciousness that begins in the book of Genesis. Here are all the references to ‘Father’ in the Sermon on the Mount:

1. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven (5:16).2. But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven (5:44-45a).3. You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (5:48).4. Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven (6:1).5. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you (6:4b).6. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret (6:6a).7. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you (6:6b).8. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him (6:8).9. Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven… (6:9a).10. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you… (9:14).11. …but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (9:15).12. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret (6:17-18a).13. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you (6:18b).14. Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them (6:26a).15. For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all (6:32).16. If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him (7:11)!17. Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven (7:21).

It is not so obvious, but perhaps that is the point. For the vast majority of references, Jesus talked about his Father as if he were their Father, and he is not so clear how that happens. He is wanting them to keep on listening, to keep on following him. It is a long road upon which he is walking.​At the middle occurrence, Jesus says that this Father is ‘our’ Father. And, at the very last mention, he says that this Father is ‘my’ Father. For this Father to become our Father, it is crucial to continue to hear his voice as he continues down that road he is headed. And at the end of that very special road—surprise, surprise—he will call them his brothers (see 28:10).

This Sunday is extremely special. Since February 2nd is on a Sunday, and February 2nd is the fortieth day after Christmas, this Sunday we celebrate ‘The Purification of Mary and the Presentation of Our Lord’. It is a significant festival that points to Christ, and so it takes over the readings for the Sunday. The gospel text is from the only place where we know that visit to Jerusalem happened, in the Gospel according to Luke [2:22-32].

With the ‘Presentation of Our Lord’, there is the presentation of Jesus into the temple. This is a special visit to a special place by a special person. And you probably know that something special is going to happen.

Simeon ends up saying some very special things. I would like to focus on basically just one word that he says: face. That word, unfortunately, does not end up in the ESV. The following is a more literal translation: ‘My eyes saw your salvation which you have prepared before the face of all the peoples (verses 30-31).’

It is interesting that the word ‘face’ does not even appear in some ancient manuscripts. Why? It seems that the writer liked to describe being ‘before’ someone, rather than use a reference to ‘face’. He uses that other way in Luke 1:15 (‘he will be great before the Lord’), 1:17 (‘and he will go before him’), 1:19 (‘I am Gabriel, the one standing before God’), 1:75 (‘in holiness and righteousness before him’), and 1:76 (‘he will go before the Lord to prepare his ways’; these translations are also very literal). So, it makes sense that one would expect him to use the word ‘before’ as he did before.

In the previous verses, he was even talking about God or a person, and both of those things have faces! But now, he chooses to say that there is a face ‘of all the peoples’. This is the more difficult reading, the one you would not expect, and, therefore, probably the original reading.

Why was it important for him to say that there was a face of all the peoples? That is a difficult perspective to have. We usually attribute a face to ourselves, and we may attribute a face to God, but we usually do not attribute a face to all the peoples.

With this phrase, and given the way that the writer used similar words before this, I cannot help but think of the word ‘gospel’ as it was used in the Old Testament. It was a word that was used when a significant message went from the battlefield to the king (see 1 Samuel 4:17). But it was also used for other things. Essentially it is an important message that goes from one significant place to another. And I believe the writer is saying that the world is a significant place. And Jesus’ arrival is a significant event.

Lest we forget: the world also has a face. That is what we have in the book of Genesis, in the creation account. Talk about a bigger perspective. With this perspective, individualism is not even given a chance.

All peoples are significant. As a whole, they have a face. It is interesting that, when the Lord breathes into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life, the Greek translation says that he breathed into his face. The face is an important thing. It is a special thing.​I have probably heard of this before and just forgot, and perhaps you have as well, but I read this week that there are seven parts to a person’s face—seven being a significant number in the bible (two ears, two eyes, two nostrils, and one mouth; see TDNT, volume 6, page 774). That may be another simple reminder of how special we are.